Open Brain Eruption!

[River Rat]

My open brain coral just opened a large orifice in its mid-section and violently expelled a huge volume of black/brown stringy material. What the heck is going on?

[zhenya]

My open brain coral just opened a large orifice in its mid-section and violently expelled a huge volume of black/brown stringy material. What the heck is going on?

Have you fed it recently? It could be just expelling waste, it could be attempting to propagate or it could be expelling it's zooxanthellae. Did you take a picture of the event by chance?

[River Rat]

We had just feed it a few moments before. A cleaner shrimp scurried across it chasing food as we did.

[sihaya]

I'm with Gene... I'd say it's either expelling waste or zooxanthellae. Feeding might be one reason... have you changed the lighting or it's position in the tank at all recently?

[optical]

yuck!

[sihaya]

Yeah... it is pretty gross.

[River Rat]

Yes, we added flouresent lighting two weeks ago. We also repositioned him a bit last week to reduce the light level, reading in TFH mag that they like a bit of shade. He looks fine now.

[sihaya]

Well, there you go then, my guess is that he's expelling zooxanthellae to adapt to the new level of lighting.